“Perfect idea, darling,”Duke said, nodding. “I’ll pop into the shop and find a copy—”
“Won’t work. I can’t go to a Gatsby party dressed like this. Even you look underdressed.”
His mouth dropped open. He gestured at his suit. “This is Savile Row!”
“Sorry. It’s not a tux. You need a tux and I need…” I looked down at myself. “Anything but leggings.”
“I see the issue here. Best pop home.”
“So much for sneaking my umbrella back into the supply closet. I’ll have to take it with us and risk getting caught.”
“Halt. I have a brilliant idea,” Duke said. “Per usual.”
He disappeared again. A moment later, he came back, holding another black umbrella in his hand.
“Lost and found box,” he said.
“You are as brilliant as you are handsome.”
“Yes, I know.”
It wasn’t exactly the same make and model, so to speak. Mine was wood and steel and this one had a plastic handle, but unless they looked too closely, no one should notice the difference.
Duke returned the fake umbrella to the supply closet, and we met Koshka at the back door.
“It’s going to look very suspicious—a man in a suit, a woman with an umbrella not in the rain, and a cat sneaking out of a bookstore at dawn. So play it cool. Walk, don’t run to my car,” I told the boys.
Koshka whined in protest.
“Right, very short legs,” I said. “You can run. If we see anybody, just smile and nod. Oh, and pray the car starts. I’d rather not walk home.”
“Because we might get spotted?” Duke asked.
“No, because it’s six blocks uphill.”
Duke pushed the door open, and we slipped outside. He took me by the arm and escorted me through the fading mist of the story magic. As the sun slowly rose, the books fell silent, waiting like wallflowers at a ball for a new suitor to come and claim the next waltz.
No thieves, robbers, petty crooks, shoplifters, assassins, or pickpockets ever snuck away from the scene of the crime as sneakily as we snuck to my car. My head faced forward but my eyes ping-ponged in all directions to make sure we weren’t being watched. We made a beeline for my Sun Buggy. If the car didn’t start, Plan B was walking. There was also a Plan C, because I always have a Plan C.
Plan C is, of course,crying.
We got lucky. The car started. I could have Plan C–ed with relief, but I was in too much of a hurry to get us home and out of the cold and damp.
“Good job, team,” I said as I drove us up the hill to Pilcrow House. “Well done. We didn’t get arrested. Yet.”
“Gatsbyisn’t a Code Red Ink book, is it?” Duke asked.
“It’s not. Long story but Burners tend to leave it alone.”
“And you do have a copy of the book at home, yes?”
I gave him a look, the one where you keep your lips in a perfectly straight line, the look that tells the person you’re looking at that you’re questioning either their intelligence or their sanity—or both.
“Right,” Duke said. “Of course you do.”
“Yes, a house of Book Witches has a copy of the most famous American novel of the twentieth century.”
As famous as it is now,The Great Gatsbyhad been a poor seller, practically a flop when it came out. The story caught a second wind during World War II, however, when a nonprofit sent free books to soldiers. After the war the book became a staple on high school and college reading lists and hasn’t left them since.
